Regards, Ivan
If you want on or off this list, please let me know!
--Boris
The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo
By Al Capp
More than 50 years ago, America was taken by storm when Al Capp introduced the Shmoo into his comic strip Li'l Abner--where Sadie Hawkins Day also first appeared. In the words of Life magazine, the nation was "Shmoo-struck." The adorable squash-shaped character was so popular that it immediately spawned a massive merchandising craze: there were Shmoo dolls, Shmoo watches--even Shmoo ashtrays and Shmoo fishing lures. Shmoo clubs sprang up around the country--including a "Society for the Advancement of the Shmoo"--and inflatable Shmoos managed to reach German soil as part of the Berlin Air Lift. It was, as a reviewer in The New York Times commented, "a cultural event of enormous significance."
For the first time, Al Capp's essential comic strips featuring the Shmoo have been collected in one volume. It looks like the citizens of Dogpatch have it made: the charming little critters can lay eggs, give milk, and be broiled into steaks--all grade A--while their eyes make exquisite suspender buttons, their whiskers fine-grade toothpicks, and their hides the softest leather. The Shmoos provide for every need, and reproduce at such a prodigious rate that no one even fights over them! Soon, however, America's captains of industry wage war on the creatures to protect their profits. Will Li'l Abner, Daisy Mae, Mammy and Pappy Yokum, and the rest of America choose the Shmoo--or the status quo?
The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo is Al Capp and his incisive social criticism at its best, making it clear why John Steinbeck once hailed the cartoonist as "the best satirist since Laurence Sterne." Author Biography: Al Capp (1909-1979) created Li'l Abner, considered by many the greatest comic strip of all time. With their first appearence in 1934, Capp's gang of Dogpatch hillbillies struck a chord with Depression-plagued Americans, and the strip was soon an overwhelming success.
We are about to experience a revolution of Shmoo. This volume, a compilation of two of Al Capp's graphic novels - The Life and Times of the Shmoo and The Return of the Shmoo - mark the first time so much Shmoo has ever been featured in one place. The wonderfully bad squash-shaped creation will be released in September - and will undoubtedly delight Shmoo fans everywhere. From the first time Li'l Abner "hears strange moosic" to his discovery of the Valley of the Shmoon to government pleas to eliminate all Shmoo, revisit all the fabulous residents of Dogpatch and imagine a time when, as Life magazine put it, America was "Shmoo-struck." It may happen again!
What a sick individual. Of course in Germany there will be no death penalty, just like there was no death penalty for dahmer in Wisconsin, but dahmer met his fate in prison.
I don't see how you'd top this though. But then, I think that every time and some sicko always comes along and tops it and makes me think "Now why didn't I think of that?"
Deiter vill cut off his penis - and I'll eat it
Than - Ve DANCE !
Apparently they flambeed (sp?) the thing in brandy before the first tasting. Then they decided it would be better fried.
Not at all clear how the donor remained conscious during the, uh, dinner.